Flight Sim Laptop?

[HighFlier 17]

I’m going off to college next year and having a desktop in a dorm room is not looking feasible. I’d hate to give up flight simming (I’ll be a lot busier but I bet I can squeeze a couple of good flights in a month) and I was wondering if there was a laptop out there that can run P3Dv4 with PMDG, ASP4, and Rex4 Textures at a decent frame rate (like 30 FPS minimum, on the ground). I don’t plan on getting scenery...I’m assuming that would push any laptop past what it can handle.

Any suggestions?

[Dean33 69]

It all depends on your budget.   Before my current rig I had a non gaming laptop i4 and it worked ok but sometimes frame rate struggled. 

My current laptop (specs below) can do whatever I need and I’m delighted. 

[scandinavian13 5,192]

8 hours ago, HighFlier said:

Any suggestions?

I have an ASUS G74SX that I used for a while as my sim/main computer. It wasn't bad.

If you want it, it'll probably be up on the classified section of the forum soonish.

[HighFlier 17]

My budget is $4000-5000. I can get something nice. I currently have a laptop that just barely can run FSX and PMDG (and nothing else) at a descent frame rate. I’d like to have a laptop that can run a stable sim for once.

[blaird22 35]

You're gravy then.  There's been some recent i7 gaming laptops with GTX 10XX cards.  Get something with one of these and a solid state drive.  Wipe that bad boy and put a clean version of Windows on it.  If the laptop you get has a mechanical drive as well, you could still do scenery (it could even fit on the SSD).  These run great (I have a gamer friend with one and raves about it)

This would be a nice setup since you can have extras at home (monitors, yokes, etc.) plus the portability of a laptop

 

EDIT: Sorry for the double post... tried to add the quoted text

Edited April 5, 2018 by blaird22
Added quote

[blaird22 35]

32 minutes ago, HighFlier said:

My budget is $4000-5000. I can get something nice. I currently have a laptop that just barely can run FSX and PMDG (and nothing else) at a descent frame rate. I’d like to have a laptop that can run a stable sim for once.

You're gravy then.  There's been some recent i7 gaming laptops with GTX 10XX cards.  Get something with one of these and a solid state drive.  Wipe that bad boy and put a clean version of Windows on it.  If the laptop you get has a mechanical drive as well, you could still do scenery (it could even fit on the SSD).  These run great (I have a gamer friend with one and raves about it)

This would be a nice setup since you can have extras at home (monitors, yokes, etc.) plus the portability of a laptop

[HighFlier 17]

Wouldn’t a brand new laptop come with a clean version of windows already on it?

[blaird22 35]

1 hour ago, HighFlier said:

Wouldn’t a brand new laptop come with a clean version of windows already on it?

Usually not.  When I say "clean", I mean without 3rd party "bloatware".  OEM's will typically load their own software and can really lead to performance issues and conflicts.  As an IT professional, I can attest to the benefits of going with the least amount of extra programs possible.  Also, you will want to go into startup programs and disable all the the programs you can/won't need to load up every time.  I believe the Windows 10 recovery option will allow you to do this without buying a new version of Windows (although I haven't tried this specifically)

Let's be honest though, you'll probably be fine (especially at the beginning) if you don't do that and just disable unused startup programs.  It's just usually better practice in the long run when the PC gets more cluttered

[HighFlier 17]

I've taken a look at some of the newer gaming laptops but most of them I see have the system memory running at 2400MHz. Ideally, I'm looking for a laptop with the following specs:

 

Processor - Quad Core 3.5GHz per core

System Memory - 16GB DDR4 / 2666MHz

Graphics Processor - 8GB VRAM with Full DirectX 11 Support

Primary Hard Drive - 512GB M.2 SSD

Secondary Hard Drive - 2TB HHD

 

Is this too unrealistic for a laptop?

[dbw1 444]

My laptop is the MSI GT73 VR..... I7-7700hq, 1070-8gig, 16 gigs ram, 2 m.2 drives and a regular ssd. When home I plug a dell 3415 34" monitor in it. P3dV4.2 works very well. In Canadian $$ you can find one under $3k.

[HighFlier 17]

Okay. After some more poking around, I think I'm going to settle for a NT-15 from Origin PC. Thank you for the input gents.

[dbw1 444]

On 4/5/2018 at 11:44 PM, HighFlier said:

Okay. After some more poking around, I think I'm going to settle for a NT-15 from Origin PC. Thank you for the input gents.

My only suggestion is when you buy..buy as much horsepower as you can. You'll get a much longer useful life out of it where flight sim is concerned. I've been into laptops and flight sims since approx 2002, gone through a few and one I bought in 2008 I got 5 years out of and it could still handle things though at the end i was moving sliders to the left a ways. If you want to use a nice external monitor a good video card is a must.

Dave

[ninerwhiskey9W 19]

On 4/5/2018 at 10:39 PM, HighFlier said:

My budget is $4000-5000. I can get something nice. I currently have a laptop that just barely can run FSX and PMDG (and nothing else) at a descent frame rate. I’d like to have a laptop that can run a stable sim for once.

I'd suggest taking a look at Clevo resellers in your country. They make laptops with PC hardware and are customisable and upgradable, provided the chipset will support the next gen hardware.